


and the moon is waxing gibbous

by prairiewolf (lynxrowland)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Canon Divergent, First Date, First Kiss, Fluff, Get Together, M/M, spoilers for 3B (kinda)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-18
Updated: 2014-08-18
Packaged: 2018-02-13 18:44:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2161086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lynxrowland/pseuds/prairiewolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek doesn’t kiss Stiles on his 18th birthday. He means to. That’s how it’s supposed to go.</p>
<p>(Stiles and Derek get together with the change of seasons.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	and the moon is waxing gibbous

**Author's Note:**

> This was written as a tumblr prompt back in March 2014--post 3B, but very obviously ignoring the end of 3B.

**WINTER**

It takes until January before things calm down enough and the McCall pack is functioning more-or-less efficiently. The boys have been training up for the lacrosse season to start again (being that Jackson is still in London, Scott is the sole captain of the team this year), and the girls have been working on mastering the entirety of the Argent arsenal in the mean time. It's a nice break for the pack. Things have been relatively peaceful for weeks now, and it's a blessing. 

December 31st sees the pack at a quiet New Year’s Eve shindig at Lydia’s house. There’s booze and a half baggy of neatly-rolled joints and music and food. Scott has generously invited Derek even though Derek is well-known to be a somewhat of a party-pooper. He brings a few bottles of champagne as thanks, and tries not to think about how he’s willingly supplying minors with alcohol. Albeit minors who mostly can’t get drunk anyways, but it’s the principle of the thing.

The party is in full-swing when he gets there. It’s 11:37, but he doesn’t want to stay long anyways. This is, annoyingly enough, the highlight of his week…but it’s still a high school party. Isaac and Allison are making out on the sofa with two beer bottles between them. Lydia and Aiden are having a quiet argument out on the back porch. Scott, with a joint pinched between his fingers, looks at them like he thinks it’s his duty to break them up. He splits his attention between the spat and sending loving, happy glances at Kira who is carefully building a pyramid out of a pack of blue Solo cups. Danny and Ethan are missing from the party, but it's obvious where they've gone because one of Danny's shoes is lying forlorn on the staircase.

And then there’s Stiles, alone as he always is in a crowd, but at least he has a drink in one hand and an ice cream sandwich in the other.

"Hey, man," he smiles, leaning against the wall. He's wearing the sweater that Lydia got him for Christmas. 

"Hey," Derek replies. He doesn’t smile, but it’s a near thing. He knows that just because the corners of Stiles’ mouth are turned up doesn’t mean he’s necessarily happy.

They stand together in companionable silence while the music thumps on. Their friends—their pack—move around them from the smorg in the kitchen to the living room  to the backyard. At some point Danny and Ethan drift back down the stairs with contented expressions on their faces and join in on a debate with Kira about the importance of spandex in comic book movie adaptations. Derek and Stiles don’t have to talk. They both recognize that they are two pieces who don’t fit in the puzzle the way they might’ve if Beacon Hills wasn’t such a magnet for tragedy. (Derek spares a thought for what they would've been like if they'd met in some alternate universe where no one had died. They'd probably have hated each other even more.)

Suddenly it’s 12:02 and everyone is laughing about how they’ve missed the beginning of the New Year. It’s 2013 and no one noticed. “You’re supposed to kiss someone on New Year’s Eve, right?” Stiles asks. Derek nods slowly, but he doesn’t want—or it’s not that he _doesn’t_ just not with—or he _does_ but not like this, not when—

Stiles pulls him in by the belt loops, and Derek’s breath hitches. Fuck, he _doesn’t want_ —but then Stiles just rests his head down on Derek’s shoulder, slightly turned so Derek can feel the heat of Stiles’ lips near his neck, but not quite touching. Derek instinctively wraps his hands around Stiles’ biceps. His fingers don’t fit all the way around like they might’ve two years ago. It's not even a hug. 

"Is this okay?" Stiles asks, as everyone else around them are kissing each other, oblivious and happy.

Derek nods. Yeah, it’s okay.

 

**SPRING**

It’s not a damn date. Derek has to keep telling himself that because it’s _not_.They’re just going to the movies because everyone _else_ is having a date night and Stiles doesn’t want to be alone. Normally everyone works their couples outings so that either Stiles can tag along or there’s someone else he can hang out with. After the Nogitsune he can’t be by himself for too long. But there were some communication errors and Scott had asked if he’d be fine alone for the night. Stiles had said yes. Derek had heart his heartbeat stutter where Scott hadn’t. So he offered to take Stiles to go see The Croods.

The dumbest thing is that he can’t fucking figure out what to _wear_.

He finally just goes for black-on-black-on-black, regrets for the first time not having the Camaro to pick Stiles up in. Stiles smirks at him when he rolls up to the Stilinski house in the Toyota instead. He’s wearing one of his dumb graphic tees but Derek is happy to see it anyways. They go to a Johnny Rockets for dinner. They enjoy the milkshakes and lament how awful the burgers are and together spend about $15 on the jukebox in quarters. Stiles keeps playing [Leader Of The Pack](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8UKf65NOzM) and it’s not until the third time that Derek gets it and barks out some sort of reprimand. Stiles just laughs, throwing his head back against the red vinyl seat. It’s the first time Derek has ever heard him laugh. He wants to hear it forever.

Maybe it’s more of a date than he’s allowing himself to assume.

The theatre in Beacon Heights is packed with parents and children, even though it's a 9:15 showing. Derek and Stiles luck out with seats relatively close to the top row and they studiously ignore the gall of three separate couples who are making out at a G-rated film. The movie is ridiculously cute, but it’s also painful for Derek to watch. It’s so focused on family—one that hunts together and lives together in a cohesive unit. Stiles rests his arm palm-up on the rest between them, an offering. Derek wedges the popcorn bucket next to his hip and threads his fingers between Stiles’. He starts feeling the heat creep up his spine to his blushing ears. Stiles just squeezes his hand once and then just holds it there for the rest of the movie.

By the time Derek drops Stiles back at his house, it’s past midnight. The Sheriff is already home from his late-evening shift and the porch light is on. “This was really fun, actually.” Stiles says, unbuckling his seatbelt and pointedly taking the Reese’s package out of his jacket pocket to put in Derek’s cup holder. Derek thinks for a second that if this _was_ a date, this’d be the right time to lean across the console and kiss Stiles, right on his dumb beautiful mouth.

He doesn’t, though, and Stiles just hops out of the Toyota and with a wave heads into his house. Derek still pulls away with a smile on his face.

 

**SUMMER**

July in Beacon Hills is the hottest it’s been since 1972. _A scorcher_ , the hosts on Derek’s guilty-pleasure top-40s station keep saying. Like some dragon is breathing fire all over them. (He hopes it’s not a dragon. That’d sure fuck up his plans for finding a job.)

And he’s looking for a job. It’s been too quiet and he needs something to do. The Sheriff has offered him a place at the department as a dispatcher, but it seems almost like nepotism since he’s quasi-semi-kinda-dating Stiles—except not really, they just have a standing agreement on every second Tuesday to go out for curly fries and milkshakes for a semblance of normalcy. Sometimes they hold hands over the table. Every once in a while Stiles will hug him for objectively too long; subjectively not long enough. People stare. Gossip has been getting around. They’re not doing anything. It’s just practically platonic dates that Derek enjoys more than he lets on. 

Anyways, he can’t accept the Sheriff’s offer. Instead he’s been slipping his resume to all the construction companies in town. He can heft two-by-fours. He can usually nail two things together. He’s got the musculature and the obligatory greyish tank top. No one’s been calling back yet, but he figures it’s only a matter of time.

In the meantime he goes with the pack to the beach. They drive all the way out to the coast. Apparently both Scott and Stiles take the whole Californian thing seriously because they both honest-to-God surf. They’re pretty good, but the water is frigid. They’re _NorCal_ kids through-and-through, but Derek opts to lay out in the sun where it’s still hot as a sauna and get a tan.

He must fall asleep because he’s jerked awake when someone’s body drops unceremoniously on top of his. Derek is about to freak out but he realizes it’s actually Stiles. Then in the next moment he goes warm all over, and it’s not because of the sun. “You’re gonna get tan lines from your glasses,” Stiles says, plucking the aviators from his face. This is the closest they’ve ever been, save for that one time with Matt and Kanima venom in their veins. Derek can barely breathe because Stiles’ face is _right there_.

"I'm fine, but thanks." He doesn’t know where to put his hands, so his arms lay limply at his side. He thinks about sitting up, so Stiles would be forced to either straddle his hips or slip between them. Derek doesn’t do anything.

Eventually Stiles rolls to the side, but still tucked up against Derek. They lie like that for a while. Every once in a while Stiles points out a cloud that looks likes some sort of animal. “Look,” he says, pointing to one that’s vaguely rooster-shaped, “that one looks like a cock.”

Derek snorts. “Wow, how old are you again?”

Stiles smacks him across his chest, but he’s grinning.

 

**AUTUMN**

Derek doesn’t kiss Stiles on his 18th birthday. He means to. He thinks that he’s meant to for a long time. He wants to lead Stiles away from the big barbeque party they’re having for him, back through the preserve. Stiles would trip over the forest floor in the dark but Derek would never let him fall. They’d tumble out of the brush a little breathless by the pond. Derek would slide his palm to the back of Stiles’ neck and tilt his head and lean in so slowly until they were both desperate for it before he’d make the plunge. That’s how it’s supposed to go.

Except somehow he ends up having to make all the burgers and roast corn on the cob, and then get more ice, and then go fetch his old generator from the loft so they can have music when the batteries on Scott's iPod dock run out. At the very least he gets to dance with Stiles. It’s an experience in itself, because Stiles is spastic and jumpy where Derek would rather tug him close enough to breathe each other’s air. It’s still the most fun he’s ever had dancing with anyone since Paige at Junior Prom.

He finally gets to kiss Stiles four days later, after the hangover has well worn off and they’re getting back from their Tuesday date. Stiles is driving, for once, dropping off at Derek’s new apartment that he’s rented with money from his job at as a forklift driver in a warehouse ten minutes out of town. It’s been a nice night, finally having some time alone together after days and days of birthday celebrations. They pull up to Derek’s building and Stiles throws the Jeep in park, and tugs the key out of the ignition.

"Derek," he says, straight-forward and serious, "can I kiss you?"

For a moment Derek is stunned into silence and forgets that his answer is _yes, yes, a thousand times yes_. Stiles is just about to open his mouth to apologize for reading the situation wrong. But then Derek throws his hand on top of Stiles’ over the gear shift just in time. “Yeah,” he says, voice coming out nothing more than dry air, so he licks his lips and swallows and tries again. “Yes, please.”

The shy smile is one Derek rarely gets to see. It’s a sign of Stiles being genuine. Derek leans over and gets the corner of Stiles mouth, sloppily. They both chuckle before Stiles tilts his head and tries, only to end up rubbing his lips over Derek’s stubble. He giggles a bit helplessly as Derek pulls back. He comes back and they finally get the angle right, just a press of lips for two seconds. Stiles breathes out shakily, a bundle of nerves. Derek doesn’t feel much more confident. His heart is racing and his neck is beading with sweat.

He shifts again, trying to get closer, to make it better. Instead he smacks his knee against the glove compartment.

The laughter fills the Jeep this time. “Let’s just get out of the damn car and do this outside.”

They do, and it’s much better where Derek can press Stiles up against the side and Stiles can wedge his knee between Derek’s, and the moon is in waxing gibbous.

 

**WINTER**

It’s midnight on December 31st and they have each other. They kiss and it’s going to be a beautiful year.


End file.
